Mar 21, 2009

A gift to the community, the patientsBy Tippi RaspEnidNews.com

When the weather is too cold and windy in the winter or hot and muggy in the summer to go outside for a break, there’s a place in both local hospitals visitors can go for relief.

“It smells good, it looks good,” said DeLauna Jobe, volunteer manager at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center. “It’s a break from the tensions that go on here.”

Both St. Mary’s and Integris Bass Baptist Health Center gift shops are staffed mostly by volunteers. The cheerful nature of workers who love what they do, combined with the right merchandise for both hospital staff and visitors, makes the gift shops the perfect escape.

Jobe said the most frequent comment their volunteers hear is: “I don’t know who your buyer is, but they do a good job.”

Jobe said the four buyers for the shop have to be in complete agreement on merchandise, or they don’t buy it.

“If we aren’t all for it, we don’t get it,” Jobe said.

The top-selling goods at St. Mary’s gift shop include handbags, plush animals and toys, candles and candy.

At St. Mary’s, 25 volunteers and one staff member, who is paid by St. Mary’s volunteers, run the operation. Any profits go to the volunteer program, which helps provide goods and services to the community and patients. The St. Mary’s volunteers are independently incorporated.

“It is completely run by the volunteers,” Jobe said. “All that profit goes into the volunteer coffers. They do things for the community and the patients. We buy newspapers, plants, paper and pens … “

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